


Necessary Evil

by SylvanWitch



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: F/F, POV Second Person, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-03
Updated: 2019-04-03
Packaged: 2020-01-01 08:23:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 424
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18332279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SylvanWitch/pseuds/SylvanWitch
Summary: Elizabeth watches Corporal Penney from afar until their mutual loneliness draws her closer.





	Necessary Evil

**Author's Note:**

> I pulled a book from my shelf-- _The Vampire: His Kith and Kin_ , by Montague Summers--and chose three words from three pages at random. Those words were: ancient, involved, Baudelaire. 
> 
> That's where this little story came from.

Corporal Ann Penney reads Baudelaire when she thinks no one is looking.

You’re looking.

You notice first the way she tucks her hair behind her ear. Later, it’s the way her fingers tap symphonies against her thighs when she’s listening to your speeches. The only time you’ve ever seen them still is the day you send Private Conroy home with a wreath and the thanks of a grateful station and a hundred million regrets.

Private Conroy’s first name was Sarah, you recall, and though you’d rather not, you have no trouble remembering the time you saw her with Corporal Penney jogging on the west pier, laughing and leaning toward one another: Two young women strong of limb and full of life.

Now, Penney is alone on her morning runs, except for you, but she doesn’t know you’re watching.

It’s not your place to get involved, you tell yourself.

You’ll ask Major Lorne to look in on her.

But you cannot stop yourself from asking her, when you see her tucked into an out of the way corner in one of those perfect beams of moted light the Ancients seemed to fabricate from the ether:

“Baudelaire?”

It’s nothing, just a word. She can pretend you haven’t spoken.

But she looks up, tucks a strand of brown hair behind her ear, smiles a little uncertainly, her big, brown eyes taking in your face—you’re pretty sure you’re wearing “polite interest,” but the mask may be slipping.

(Please, god, don’t let her see desirelonelinessfear.)

She says, “I like the way he can make even the evil things seem necessary.”

You want to ask her if the vampires he writes so beautifully of are real to her: wet-mouthed, toothy nightmares with fish eyes and white hair.

And then you remember how Baudelaire died, and you see in Penney’s face the strain of loss, and you wonder if the Ancients ever invented a cure for despair.

“Would you like to go for a run with me tomorrow?” you ask instead.

She smiles and closes her book and says, “Sure.”

“Great,” you answer, though your throat is dry, and your heart is a triphammer against your ribs, and your palms are damp. (You’re twelve years old asking Megan Murphy if she wants to ride the bus with you.) 

“Where should I meet you, Doctor Weir?”

“Call me Elizabeth,” you say. “And meet me here,” where the light catches the highlights in her hair and turns the fine down on the backs of her hands to gold, “Ann,” you add shyly.


End file.
